What You Deserve
by Lucinda
Summary: Logan considers Scott's pain after Jean's sacrifice.  Post X2.  Non pairing.


author: Lucinda  
  
rating: pg 13  
  
main characters: Logan, Scott - Not a pairing.  
  
Pairings: mention of Logan's crush on Jean, mention of Scott/Jean  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Logan, Scott or any other characters from the X-Men movies.  
  
Distribution: please ask first: Paula & Luba may have it, anyone else please ask first.  
  
note: Contains spoilers for X-2.  
  
Logan had been thinking about Jean again. He'd been thinking about her a lot, lately... well, since he'd woke up the very first time in her medical lab. It had seemed almost natural to want her, she was attractive, had been helping him get better, and the way that she smelled... mmm. So he'd flirted with her, wanted her. Perhaps his flirting was a bit heavy handed, but he wasn't terribly good at subtle anymore... if he ever had been.  
  
She'd kept refusing, saying that she had somebody, that it wasn't the time or place for the conversation... that he couldn't settle down. She hadn't once said that she wasn't interested.  
  
Jean had still been in his dreams as he'd searched for his past. Only, sometimes, it wasn't a med lab, but a log cabin, and the redhead smiling at him when he woke wasn't Jean, even though they wore the same perfume. He knew her, had spoke to her, but her name was always gone when he woke. Logan had started to wonder if he'd chased Jean because she reminded him of this other redhead that he could almost remember. The red haired woman with laughing green eyes who had been helping him because... a stabbing pain cut off the memory. But he was certain that Jean was reminding him of her.  
  
He'd fallen back into flirting with her when he'd come back, but... when they'd talked in the woods, something had clicked in his mind. Yeah, Jean had said she chose Scott, but she didn't say it like a woman in love. She didn't get this soft, misty look in her eyes or the right sort of scent that said she was thinking about someone like that.  
  
Fact was, she sounded more like she was picking a good mortgage than a good husband.  
  
When they'd met back up with Scott, he'd watched them both carefully. If it was all just a hollow relationship, why not try to move in? And he didn't see anything more than a vague sort of affection for Scott from Jean. But from Scott... there was the sort of desperate worry and tender concern and... that something else that he couldn't put into words that said 'Love'. Scott was in love with Jean. Desperately, passionately, with all that he was. It wasn't a good thing to see. Scott loved Jean, would do anything for her, and Jean seemed to think that he was a good investment for the future.  
  
He'd wondered if Scott had any clue that Jean didn't feel as intensely about their relationship. If he knew that Jean was just… sort of hanging on because he could take care of her. As things had moved, and they'd ended up on their way back to Alkali Lake, he made the realization.  
  
Scott had no clue.  
  
He had been completely surprised by Jean's sacrifice. She'd died so that they could live. Lifted the ship by her telekinises and held the crashing water back until they could leave. It had been the most heroic thing that he'd seen from them so far... any of them. No human could have survived that…  
  
But what about a mutant? The rules were different for mutants, sometimes for each mutant. One of the girls could walk through walls, Marie could pull out and use someone's abilities, Mystique could look like anyone… Were there mutants that could breath underwater? Survive all that water? He knew that he wouldn't have, the metal made him so heavy that he'd sink right to the bottom.  
  
"She's gone…" Scott's whisper was barely audible. It might still have gone unnoticed except for the scent of his grief, the scent of the tears the man refused to shed.  
  
"Tearing yourself up won't bring her back, Scott." Logan tried to keep his voice gentle, as if he were soothing a frightened child. He still thought that Scott could be a stiff necked pain in the ass, but the man was hurting. It would have been wrong to just ignore that pain.  
  
"What will?" Scott turned to look, his sunglasses almost glowing, as if the sun's light was reflecting from them. The problem with that was the fact that the room's window didn't face the sun right now.  
  
"Nothing that I know of. Not unless there is a God and he takes a hand in it." Logan put his hand on Scott's shoulder. "I'm not going to try and say that I know how you feel. Only person that might is Xavier, because he can look. But I know it hurts."  
  
"You wanted her for yourself." Scott's words held a bit of jealousy.  
  
"Yeah. But she didn't want me." Logan shook his head, remembering how that had unfolded. She'd said he was the bad boy, the fantasy, not the guy to go home to afterwards. She'd said women married nice guys. "She chose you."  
  
"Did you… did you know that she would…" Scott's voice sounded rough with grief and pain.  
  
"No. I didn't." He sat in a chair, wondering how to help Scott see that this wasn't the end of everything. "I hadn't expected anything like that from her. I could have seen it from you. Maybe Storm. But Jean… that was a surprise."  
  
"You wouldn't have been surprised at me? You think…." Scott sounded surprised.  
  
"You focus on the team, on the school. Everything else but Jean comes after that with you. Damn straight I can see you making the trade off of you for the team or the school." Logan frowned as his fingers seemed to reach for something, maybe a cigar? He could almost remember smoking one, a nice solid Cuban… But he hadn't had any like that in all the years that he could remember. Not that that was too many years… "Grieve for her. But it won't bring her back. And if you just waste away out of grief, who's going to be here for the school? For the team? Maybe Ororo could manage the school, but she doesn't always seem to be able to track everything in the field. So, who would run the team? Me? Don't make me laugh. That's not what I do."  
  
"No, you find trouble." Scott almost sounded like his normal self in that moment.  
  
"And I do a very good job of it." Logan forced a grin, certain that he'd once done a lot more than just find trouble. "Face it, Scooter, nobody else here can fill in for you if you bite it."  
  
"Don't call me that." The response was almost automatic. "Logan… why do you care?"  
  
"Because… it's not right to see you all torn up like this. You deserve better." Logan sighed, wishing that he had a better answer himself.  
  
"Better? Better than this pain?" Scott sounded angry, but he smelled like it was a choice between anger and broken hearted grief.  
  
Almost, Logan said better than Jean. But he didn't. Scott had loved her, still loved her memory. He wouldn't want to let anything tarnish the image of her that he held. "Better than this hurt. Better than to stand there broken open inside. Better than to feel like your whole world's been shattered, and wishing you knew how everything else staggers on, looking the same."  
  
"How do I get there?" Scott sounded a bit curious.  
  
"One painful day at a time." Logan sighed, remembering the way he'd felt when he realized that he wasn't the same, that instead of a past and a family, he had a set of claws. "But you don't have to do it alone. You've got the people here. This is your family, Scott."  
  
"Family." Scott sighed, collapsing into the other chair. "But they can't bring her back."  
  
"Maybe not. But they can sit with you. Remember her life, not her death. Remember the good times instead of dwelling in pain. And they can help you by mourning with you." Logan shook his head, certain that Scott would continue to cherish his memories of the Jean he'd thought he had, the perfect woman he'd placed on a pedestal, a flawless martyr. And that was quite the shame, because it wasn't how Jean had been.  
  
"Thanks, Logan." Scott sounded… well, still miserable, but not quite as hopeless.   
  
Somehow, those two words made things feel a bit better.  
  
End What You Deserve. 


End file.
